GENEVA: The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday that reports the Palestinian Red Crescent had received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip were "deeply concerning".
"The Palestinian Red Crescent report of evacuation threats to Al-Quds hospital in Gaza is deeply concerning," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X.
"We reiterate - it's impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives."
Meanwhile, Pope Francis on Sunday called for a ceasefire in the Mideast war and renewed an appeal for the release of hostages.
"Let no-one abandon the possibility of stopping the weapons," he said at his weekly blessing in St Peter's Square.
"Ceasefire," he said, mentioning a recent television appeal by Father Ibrahim Faltas, one of the Vatican's representatives in the Holy Land.
He then added in his own words: "We say 'ceasefire, ceasefire'. Brothers and sisters, stop! War is always a defeat, always".
Francis spoke as Israeli forces waged ground operations in Gaza in what is called the second phase of a three-week-old strikes.
The total death toll in Gaza rose to 8,005 people and 20,242 others injured, according to the official spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza on Sunday.
The dead include 3,324 children, 2,062 women and 460 among the elderly, the spokesperson said. — Reuters
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